Bulletproof Vest: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Artemus Gordon''': If I may make one last request...that she aim for my heart -- the heart that loved this country so much...

 

 

In military combat, and occasionally SWAT action shows, the '''Bulletproof Vest''' goes hand in hand with the Kevlar helmet. Any character who removes his helmet after the skirmish is seemingly over or at a lull in the action, automatically takes a round in the head. A common way for the military [[Red Shirt]] to bite it.

In fiction, a bullet proof vest is capable of stopping anything up to (and sometimes even including) armour-piercing bullets. The shot might knock you down and leave you with a hole in your shirt, but you'll get up just fine. In games, vests almost universally either stop all damage or just reduce damage taken, and then are destroyed when they take enough damage(Actually ceramic plate armor protects against high caliber bullets by ablation, breaking apart to diffuse the kinetic energy. Needless to say its useless after a few rounds). Video game injuries are a matter of mathematical equation, whereas in real life there is a great deal of randomness involved and the usefulness of such armor lies in reducing injuries rather than eliminating them entirely.

 

 

A bulletproof vest may also stop knives and other dangerous weapons in film; however, in real life, bulletproof vests are ineffective against stabbing unless they are specially reinforced to protect from being penetrated by knives. This is because the point of a knife can slip between the weave of the fabric and cut it open.

 

{{examples}}

* Rotton the Wizard probably one of the few people in ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' with the sense to wear one. Shouting out your presence when you have the jump on the enemy not so much.

* [[Gunsmith Cats|Bean Bandit's]] famous armoured jacket seems to be multiple layers of Kevlar wrapped in leather, possibly reinforced with metal. It nearly breaks one character's foot when she accidentally pushed it off a dresser. It'll stop just about anything short of a point-blank assault rifle.

* [[Desert Punk (manga)|Desert Punk]] uses quite a bit of armor.

* Kirei Kotomine in ''[[Fate/Zero]]'' is shown to have bullet-proof priest robes (they're reinforced with Kevlar), which shows just how [[Crazy Prepared]] he is for hunting enemy magi.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In Robert Kirkman's ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', there is a fairly realistic portrayal of a bullet proof vest in action. Glenn is shot with a shotgun at fairly close range while wearing a suit of riot gear (including the vest) and while he does survive, he is injured quite badly with broken ribs and possible internal bleeding.

* In one ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' "[[Spy vs. Spy]]" strip, the black spy welds together a thick metal vest and tests it against bullets, knives, etc; it's invulnerable. He confidently approaches the white spy, who is leaning on a bridge railing. The white spy tosses a large magnet off the bridge into the water below, dragging the vest and its wearer along.

 

== Film ==

** In ''[[Lethal Weapon]] 3'', the plot revolves around the sale of "cop killer" bullets that pierce through police armor. In one scene, a character survives by simply wearing ''two'' vests on top of each other.

*** Made more baffling by the fact that earlier in the same scene the bullets are shown shooting through the front plate of a bulldozer. The bullets are also demonstrated by being fired into a vest hung on a stand. The bullet easily passes through both the front and back sides of the hanging vest, thus proving the bullets could easily penetrate a double thickness of vest.

* The film ''[[Missing in Action]]'' features an on-the-run [[Chuck Norris]] buying a large raft-like speedboat made from "the same stuff that [[Bullet Proof Vests]] are made of". The salesman demonstrates this by getting into his handy-dandy rotating turret machine gun and putting a few hundred rounds into it, not getting a scratch on it. In reality, some boats are made from such material, but are hardly bulletproof. [[Chuck Norris]] heroically steals the super-boat by [[Ballistic Discount|holding up the salesman with his own turret gun]] and forcing him to accept a nominal sum.

* Notably averted in ''[[Black Hawk Down]]'', when the US soldiers remove the reinforced steel plate from their kevlar body armor before the mission to lighten their load. Because past experience had led them to assume that they would not be fired upon, the soldiers chose to sacrifice protection for maneuverability. Ultimately they find themselves in a heavy fire-fight and suffer casualties that might have been prevented by the steel plating. Ultimately the real event helped create a restructuring of military policy that prohibits soldiers in combat zones from leaving behind their assigned equipment, though some still do.

* V in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' wears an armor plate under his clothing when confronting [[The Dragon|Creedy]] and his men. He lets them unload their clips in him and then proceeds to slaughter them all while they're reloading with his [[Knife Nut|knives]]. However, it is revealed that some of the bullets did penetrate the armor, and {{spoiler|he dies not long after}}.

* The cops at the beginning of ''[[The One (film)|The One]]'' wear body armor that appears to be impenetrable to small arms. The first slo-mo scene shows [[Jet Li]]'s character picking up a cop and using him as a [[Bulletproof Human Shield]] against the other cops firing rifles at full auto with all bullets bouncing off his back armor. The cop is shown to be hurt (with all the impacts still doing plenty of internal damage) but alive. Their helmet visors, though, aren't that strong. This is quite obviously not our universe, though (the guns have more electronics in them and Gore is the president).

* ''[[Raw Deal]]''. A mafia hit squad decides to murder a rival mob boss by running their car off the road. When [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] (playing an undercover cop posing as a [[Professional Killer]]) points out the limo is heavier than their vehicle, the leader replies: "Not if you shoot the driver." Cue an [[Oh Crap]] moment when the bullets are seen bouncing off window glass marked BULLET RESISTANT.

* in ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'', a soldier's helmet is grazed by a bullet, he takes it off to gape at the hole... and gets a second bullet in the forehead. To be fair, though, the second bullet would have killed him anyway, seeing as how WWII (and modern) helmets primarily protected against fragmentation.

* Subverted in ''[[Three Days of the Condor]]''. A CIA clerk who is a friend of the protagonist Turner is asked to help bring him in for debriefing and is issued a bulletproof vest "just in case". In reality the meeting is a set-up to kill Turner—when it goes wrong the wounded killer aims carefully and [[You Know Too Much|shoots the clerk in the throat]].

* In the remake of ''New [[Police Story]]'', Jackie Chan's character takes a gunshot point-blank to the chest while negotiating with a hostage taker, and is able to take the guy down immediately after. Subverted immediately after, in which it's indicated that he was [[Crazy Prepared|lucky he was wearing]] ''two'' bullet proof vests or the first wouldn't have protected him at that range.

 

== Literature ==

** Spider silk is impressive stuff. Bullet proof vests woven from almost any sort of silk-like material would put steel and kevlar to shame... but such materials are still totally impractical to make in bulk at the moment.

* [[Able Team]] (the 1980's [[Heroes-R-Us]] spin-off of ''[[The Executioner]]'') wore kevlar vests with a steel trauma plate insert, which came in useful when Carl Lyons got shot at point-blank range with an [[AKA-47]] in Cairo, leading to quips that he'd been shot in the head, and the terrorists had better issue armor-piercing ammo when 'The Ironman' came around.

* In the [[Adam Hall]] spy novel ''[[Quiller|Quiller's Run]]'' the protagonist runs into a problem when he wears an anti-knife vest to a confrontation with a villainess who, up till now, has used knives—only she [[Oh Crap|pulls out a revolver]] and blasts him six times in the chest. Fortunately the vest still stops the bullets.

** So, basically, she [[Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight|brought a gun to a knife-fight]], eh?

* The nightsilk garments of the ''Corean Chronicles'' series is impact resistant when worn in a skintight outfit, making a body stocking of this material effectively a set of bulletproof underwear. The material is very expensive though, so the reason the hero of the first trilogy can afford to wear it constantly is because his family manufactures it.

* ''[[Fate/Zero]]'' revealed that, in the [[Nasuverse]], Church Executioners wear bullet proof ''priest robes''.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* Rarely seen on [[Blue Bloods]], but whenever Danny wears a vest, it's because he expects trouble, and [[SWAT Team|ESU]] is right behind him.

** Subverted earlier, when Detectives Bolander, Felton, and Howard were all seriously wounded despite their vests, by an insane gun-nut conspiracy theorist who "probably used Teflon bullets".

** In the non-fiction book on which the series is based, one of the detectives was wounded in the line of duty when he was shot through his department issue vest.

* ''[[The X-Files]]''. Mulder is infiltrating a secret government lab when he's spotted by the [[The Men in Black|Gray-Haired Man]] who opens fire on him, but the bullets are stopped by a bullet-resistant glass door. However the Gray-Haired Man contines to fire, blasting a hole in the glass and them shooting through that—fortunately Mulder is able to get through the next door in time.

** In "Young At Heart" Scully is shot by a criminal during a sting operation, but she's saved by a hidden vest.

** Parodied another time where the department is testing new bulletproof vests. Suffice it to say, the shot landed elsewhere.

* ''[[Private Schulz]]''. On his first mission, Schulz's commanding officer proudly boasts that their car is completely bulletproof, which comes in useful later on when British agents start shooting at them...except the man with the car keys gets killed outside the car, preventing them from driving away. Fortunately ex-con Schulz knows how to hot-wire the vehicle.

* The ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' team suit up in Kevlar vests [[Once an Episode]].

* Subverted in ''Lost''. Ben shoots Charlotte and she is saved by her vest. Despite this, she is knocked unconscious, suffers extreme injuries from the impact and is in a lot of pain from getting hit with a bullet.

 

== Music ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Players prefer to call them [[Fan Nickname|'T-shirts']], to match the lasgun's 'Flashlight'. That's Warhammer 40k for ya: stuff the Spetznaz would die for is considered bottom-rung...

* Body armour in ''[[Shadowrun]]'' just gives you a better chance of shrugging off injury, rather than actually preventing damage per se. Unless one has a ridiculously high Body attribute (easily gained by, say, being a Troll), just one layer of ballistic armour won't cut it against anything above light pistol fire. But that's civilian- and security-grade armour. Military-grade armour makes one totally immune to anything of too low a penetrating power, but still does not save one against being shot with an Assault Cannon set to full-auto.

** Very little protects you against Assault Cannons. Be happy that only one model has a semi auto or full auto mode, and you have to beat a ''very'' skilled military unit to get one without '''lots''' of nuyen.

* The bullet proof vests available in ''[[GURPS]]'' do not inspire confidence, but they can make the difference between dead and dying.

* Flak vests (and flak helmets, jackets, pants, and suits in the expanded 2nd and 3rd editions) are the most widely available armor in the ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' tabletop role playing game and are actually reasonably useful against most of the common weapons a player character might face, such as slugthrower pistols and melee weapons. Once lasers and other exotic weapons come into play (particularly [[Kill It with Fire|flamers]] and [[Flechette Storm|heavy needlers]], basic flak armor generally falls by the wayside for something sturdier.

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''Goldeneye'', ''James Bond 007: Nightfire'', <s>''[[Perfect Dark]]''</s>, ''[[Time Splitters]]'', and ''[[Command & Conquer]]: Renegade'' you can pick up a bulletproof vest that essentially acts as a second health bar. Headshots still hurt, though.

** Perfect Dark uses an energy shield that has the same effect though, except that it does block head shots.

** Not an issue, as ''Army Men'' is about the little green plastic kind of army men (Who shoot the little tan, red, and blue plastic kind of army men) and never pretends to be any more accurate about details than a toy would be.

* The game ''Postal 2'' has Kevlar and Ceramic Armor, which reduce damage until destroyed.

** Jagged Alliance 2 also allows various attachments to armour like knee protectors and armour plate inserts. Full SWAT gear with inserts and no damage gives an insane amount of damage resistance that can make non-armour-piercing rounds do 0 damage if they hit. You don't even want to ''know'' how much damage the EOD Suits can resist. Really.

* All the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games have body armor that act as a second health bar. Depending on the game, it won't protect you from drowning, hunger, car explosions (while inside them) and high falls.

* ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Chaos Theory'' actually plays this quite realistically; if Sam triggers two or more alarms, guards will don body armor and helmets. While the armor is relatively effective against his rifle and renders his pistol practically useless except for headshots below the helmets' brims, his knife goes straight through their armor, and his nonlethal unarmed attacks, which aim for the base of the skull or nose, still knock enemies unconscious.

* Just like in real life, kevlar armors in ''[[Counter-Strike]]'' do little more than increasing your firefight life expectancy from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Kevlar helmets, meanwhile, are only effective against pistols and ''maybe'' against 5.56&nbsp;mm rifles.

** Primarily because the RNG is horrible/evil, and your soldiers can take up to ''200%'' of the listed damage shown in the UFOpaedia. On the other hand, they can also take ''0%'' of the listed damage, depending on what the RNG rolls. So your troopers can literally survive a point blank headshot without taking a single point of damage. Sometimes, the RNG only ever rolls 200s or 0s. This can lead to interesting situations where a soldier survives half a dozen heavy plasma shots only to get pinged to death by a plasma pistol shot the next turn.

** ''Apocalypse'', the third game in the series, breaks from the mold of the previous two by giving your characters armor at the beginning of the game, rather than forcing you to send your troops into battle wearing cloth jumpsuits. However, the armor ''still isn't very effective'': the aliens will start the game firing Brainsuckers at your troops, which are completely unfazed by armor, and spitting acid, which the armor isn't effective against. In addition, the armor either slows soldiers down (standard Marsec armor), or is prohibitively expensive while being barely more protective (flying armor).

** The final boss of the second game is equipped with [[Nigh Invulnerable]] full body armor that is apparently impervious to even grenade blasts and doesn't seem to slow him down (impossible).

* A good number of ''[[Mega Man X]]'' games feature body armor that gives 50% damage reduction, but not invincibility. It started in the ''X'' series, and in some games gave a new weapon, but later spread out into the other series.

* The Rainbow Six franchise plays the bullet proof vest trope fairly realistically, even in the more action oriented games, such as Vegas. Light body armor will not save a player from most types of gunfire, and armor that can reliably stop bullets is bulky and slows the wearer down.

** Which also includes steel masks to protect the face.

* Nobody in [[Yo-Jin-Bo]] wears armor, except for {{spoiler|Mon-Mon}}, who wears chain mail under his clothes. {{spoiler|He uses it to survive [[Taking the Bullet|several kunai in the back]].}}

* ''7.62 High Calibre'' has several types of armor and helmets available. The first one available, the M200 Concealable Vest, is stated as being suitable for stopping small caliber ammunition. Unfortunately, 50% of the bandits you're likely to run across are carrying sawed-off Mosin Nagants, which fire a (admittedly slower velocity) 7.62mm rifle round, meaning the vest is almost worthless. Later vests are slightly better at stopping higher caliber ammunition, and can include ceramic or titanium inserts for better protection (ceramic is stronger, but breaks after a few shots, while titanium is weaker, but more durable). There's also a game setting that can be toggled on so that vests actually provide full body protection. Otherwise, in addition to considering how heavy and protective a vest is, you also have to take into account just how much of your body that vest actually covers.

* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', bulletproof vests are generic sources of [[Hit Point]]s, which also block knives and fists and explosions. You can also convince {{spoiler|Ronald Sung}} to wear a bulletproof vest if you uncover a plan to assassinate him. Doing so {{spoiler|will save him from being killed by a sniper with a high-powered rifle, which makes one wonder just how much kevlar was in that vest.}}

* ''[[The Godfather (video game)|The Godfather]] 2'' has bulletproof vests as a reward for completing the diamond smuggling crime ring. They only reduce damage and don't guard the head or limbs.

* ''SWAT 4'' has you and your team wear light Kevlar vests and helmets by default, and the expansion pack allows you to use Heavy or even no armor in multiplayer. Suspects get armor too in some missions, but due to the game being big on realism, said body armors are only marginally effective in most situations.

 

== Webcomics ==

* Riff from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' wears one during the "Dangerous Days" arc. Since he took the blast from a ''shotgun'', however, it [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020706 still hurts like hell].

** Later on there's a [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=061108 bit of discussion] about the difference between "bullet proof" and "knife proof" vests.

 

== Web Original ==

* In [[The Return (fanfic)|The Return]] Darkstar's [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampires|Brood]] are eventually convinced to replace their [[Stripperiffic]] [http://florestica.com/jtemple/art/return/ds02.jpg outfits] with more [http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y44/sunshinetemple/FanArt_not_on_site/Ranma_new-armor2.jpg sensible ones] with bullet proofing.

* Subverted in a ''[[Homestar Runner|Cheat Commandos]]'' toon, where Gunhaver shoots Flashfight playfully, falsely believing that the latter is wearing a bulletproof vest that they were playing around with at the beginning of the toon.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[American Dad]]'', Stan has to wear braces to prevent teeth grinding, making him sound like a geek. His coworkers plant a [["Kick Me" Prank|"Shoot Me"]] sign on him, and then shoot at him.

{{quote|'''Stan:''' Oh, ha ha! Very funny guys! You're lucky I'm wearing my vest!!}}

 

== Real Life ==

** The effectiveness of body armor is highly underestimated. As [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7321647.stm this] article demonstrates, modern body armor can receive a full-contact grenade blast.

** Many army medics in Iraq reported that soldiers who survived an IED blast would often have shrapnel injuries on the limbs that would stop in a very neat line where their body armor started.

* A primitive version of such a vest is reputed to have been used by tax-gatherers. It consisted of a plank of wood hanging under the clothes on their back, and apparently it was not unknown for them to go about their business with arrows sticking out of it.

* People who make chainmail as a hobby can make good money not only by making costume-armor for Renaissance fairs but also selling mail vests to police officers looking for greater knife-protection than what their standard-issue body armor provides. However, according to research carried out by the British army in [[WW 1]], chainmail will actually make a gunshot worse. It's not strong enough to stop a bullet and will actually fragment, carrying more shrapnel into the body, as well as making it hard to reach the wound for treatment. Additionally, any stabs that do get through the chainmail will drive part of the mail into the wound, which can easily lead to infection. Also, while high quality chainmail coupled with effective padding is effectively knife proof, lower grade chain is not.

** Chainmail is also pretty heavy and cumbersome as it hangs from the shoulders. Thin steel panels are much lighter and provide comparable knife protection.

* During America's colonial expansion in the Phillipines, natives would wrap thick ropes around themselves as armor against the the standard .38 revolver bullet the Army had at the time. This led the Army to temporarily bring the Single Action Army back into service, and led to the development of the 1911, with more powerful .45 caliber ammo. The ropes actually didn't provide much protection against bullets, but they did restrict circulation, making it take longer to bleed to death from bullet wounds.

* During the 1920s/30s, a typical bulletproof vest worn by a bank robber or bootlegger was just a vest with thick layers of cotton padding and cloth.

* Scientists from China, the US, and Switzerland developed a body armor made from ''[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/March/16031001.asp cotton t-shirts]''. The process involves soaking the shirts in a boron/nickel catalyst, then heating them to over 2,000 degrees Farenheit, which turns the fibers into boron carbide, the third-strongest material on Earth. [[Futurama|Nobody Doesn't Like Molten Boron?]]

** NOW we know where the Imperial Guard gets its armour from...

** The problem with the Dragon Skin, according to testing done by the US military, was that while it was very effective when it worked, it often ''didn't'' work due to poor quality control in construction. In addition, it was more likely not to work in very hot climates. Taking into consideration where American troops often deploy nowadays, and it becomes easy to see why they were less than thrilled with the test results.

** In 2006, the US Army banned the use of privately purchased armor (making any deaths while wearing non-approved armor not eligible for certain death benefits), specifically the Dragon Skin, although some elite troops are known to hold on to their Dragon Skin after the ban, prefering it over the standard-issue Interceptor Body Armor.

*** The decision was likely also driven by a nasty collapse of accountability for body armor during the War in Iraq. The upsurge in privately-purchased body armor was driven by a breakdown in the supply of armor in the run-up to the war (the Army switched body armor types ''right'' before the war).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]